


Books, Art, Experiments, and Kisses (but no Sex on the Couch)

by Quadratur



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Established Relationship, Kissing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-12
Updated: 2012-12-12
Packaged: 2017-11-20 23:48:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/591058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quadratur/pseuds/Quadratur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve and Tony on the couch, where it's all about cuddling and kissing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Books, Art, Experiments, and Kisses (but no Sex on the Couch)

Although he's engrossed in his book, Steve notices the steps coming towards him and the distinctive pattern tells him that it's Tony, so he isn't overly surprised when Tony drops down on the couch next to him. 

Steve keeps his attention on the book, but is only waiting for Tony to say or do something and he isn't disappointed when Tony leans heavily against his side and squints down at the book open in Steve's hand. 

"Is that a book?" Tony sounds scandalized. "An actual book?"

"Yes, Tony. That's a book." Steve grins, only waiting for the rant that's sure to come. Tony's rather vocal in his disdain for books most of the time, yet Steve knows that there's a library in Tony's apartment that contains hundreds of well-red paperbacks and hard-copies, some with scribbled annotations and marks in their margins, and others with personal notes from the writers. There has been a time when Tony loved and read books and Steve's sure that a part of him still enjoys the pure physical pleasure of a book, evidenced by the fact that some of Steve's seem to disappear for a while before they re-appear again, often with scraps of paper filled with a very familiar scrawl stuck into them.

On the other hand he also enjoys Tony's rants about the benefits and advantages of technology and why a tablet is so much superior to any other medium. Steve can even see and enjoy some of the advantages though he'll probably never admit that to Tony directly. Listening to him rant and maybe go off on a tangent or two is just too entertaining. 

"A book," Tony scoffs. "Didn't I give you tablet?" 

"I like books. Real books I mean. There's something pleasurable about them, holding them touching them, tuning pages, and being able to look at the photos of paintings." Steve answers with an indulgent grin at Tony. 

"Hrmpf." Tony just huffs and leans closer to get a better look at what Steve's reading. Indulging him, Steve tilts the heavy tome towards Tony so that he can see better. 

"Dalí?" 

The book's open on a photograph that shows a young Dalí with his wife Gala and one of Dali's earlier paintings of Gala.

"Yes, I've always found him rather interesting. I was able to visist his first exhibition in New York and later saw the retrospective in the MoMa with him and Míro. It's interesting to see how he evolved over the years and what directions his art took after the war." Steve grins briefly. "I even met him and his wife Gala briefly. You would have liked her. She was a very beautiful and interesting woman. Very supportive of young artists, though I was never part of that crowd."

Tony just hums and tries to turn a page and Steve lets him, happy that Tony shows interest in something Steve likes and enjoys.. "I think I have some of his paintings... somewhere. Might even be one of her amongst them. He painted her more than once, didn't he? Ask Pepper. She should know. If you want you can have them for your apartment. Something to put up on all those bare walls of yours." 

Steve just shakes his head, once again astounded by Tony's artless generosity and the way he just offers priceless paintings to Steve simply because Steve might like the painter or the painting. He's aware that Tony collects art. The Picasso, Matisse and Kandinsky are hard to miss. As is the Jackson Pollock takes up almost a whole wall.

"I really can't accept that, Tony." Steve say, already knowing even while he's saying the words that Tony will just ignore them or brush them away. 

"Nonsense. That's the point of paintings, isn't it? To hang them at walls and look at them?" Tony waves a hand around and grins at Steve. "Better than putting them in storage somewhere."

"You could always give them to a museum, then a lot of people could look at them," Steve points out, not liking the idea of numerous paintings stacked in some storage facility where no-one will see them, even though he knows that this holds true even for museums. 

"I did, once. Pepper was very angry with me after I did that." Tony stares pensively at the ceiling. "It also might have to do with the fact that I was dying at that time." He trails off, his finger drumming softly on his arc reactor and Steve wonders what he's thinking about. He only knows the official part that made it into Tony's SHIELD-file—which only says something about Palladium poisoning—and still hopes that some day Tony will tell him the whole story of that time. 

Steve remains still, keeping his eyes on Tony until Tony shakes himself and grins ruefully at Steve. "Anyway, I doubt Pepper would be very angry if I gave the paintings to you."

Steve decides to let it rest for the moment. Maybe he can bring it up again later, or with Pepper. A loan might be okay and he could always give them back if they want to put them into an exhibition or give them to a museum. And secretly he has to admit that the idea of having an original Dali on his wall is thrilling. So instead of saying anything Steve just leans over and kisses Tony gently on the mouth. "Alright, I'll talk to Pepper. Thank you." 

Tony hums with pleasure and his eyes were filled with a warm light. "Hmm, I like your way of saying thank you. Maybe I should give you paintings more often? Or I could open my own gallery? The Tony Stark Gallery of Fine Arts?" His grin turns wicked and Steve already fears the worst. "Or maybe the Captain America Gallery? JARVIS! Make a note: art-gallery for Steve."

Steve laughs and shakes his head, mortified by the very idea. "I really don't want my own gallery."

"Nonsense. It might be a good idea to do something with all that art I seem to be collecting. Or rather Pepper is collecting with my money. You really should talk about that with her." 

"Alright. I'll talk with Pepper." If only to stave off one of Tony's crazy schemes before it can take off and develop a life of its own.

"So a painting gets me a thank-you-kiss, but a gallery gets me nothing?" Tony says, his pout exaggerated. 

Steve has to fight to bite back a grin and instead quickly pecks Tony on the mouth. The pout seems to deepen and Steve fails in his attempt not to grin. So he curls a hand around the nape of Tony's neck, pulls him closer and kisses him again, keeping it simply, just a press of lips against lips without any tongue. He keeps his next kiss purposely chaste as well. Tony tries to follow when Steve draws back, but Steve uses his hold on Tony's neck to keep him back. He studies Tony for a moment.

Tony has spend most of the night in his lab and looks like it, dark rings under his eyes, hair a wild mess, stubble on his cheeks and jaw, his beard nowhere nearly as neatly trimmed as usual, and still filled with that nervous energy of working hard and long that seems to vibrate under his skin. He's clean and not covered in oil, and only smells lightly of sweat, not oil and metal which means that whatever he was working on didn't involve any physical work and was more the kind of scientific discovery that Steve doesn't even try to understand and that usually leaves him in total awe of Tony's abilities. Not even knowing Howard and seeing what he'd been capable off, had even remotely prepared Steve for the things Tony comes up with. 

Steve also knows that right now trying to get Tony to sleep will be utterly pointless; he's still much too hyper it will take him a while to come down from his post-discovery high, a cooling down period before he's ready to crash.

He has a few ideas though on how to bring Tony down from his high and maybe calm him down enough to allow him to sleep without a generous helping of alcohol. Now is as good time a time as any to start experimenting.

Without looking Steve closes the book and throws it on the table. For a brief moment Tony's eyes flicker to the book but then they are back, focused on Steve's face, a fine frown-line forming between his eye-brows. 

He brushes his thumb over the frown-line and then buries his hand in Tony's wild hair, using the hold to tuck Tony closer again to kiss him some more. This time Steve let's the kisses grow deeper, nipping gently at Tony's lower lip and slowly licking his way into Tony's mouth when it opens. Tony makes a hungry noise and tries again to deepen the kiss. Steve does his best to keep in gentle and soft. He protests when Tony suddenly pulls back and squints at him. 

"Wait, wait, wait. Making out on the couch? Okay, I can do that. Never done that before, but I'm flexible and always open for new things." The grin is classic Tony Stark, filled with all kinds of dirty promises, although Steve has no plan of taking him up on any of them. At least not as long as they are on the couch. His cock might have other ideas but Steve is determined.

Tony shifts and settles on his lap and Steve's hands almost automatically find their place on Tony's hips. They kiss again and Tony tries to deepen the kisses, make them dirtier, wilder and it takes all of Steve's determination and strength to slow Tony down and keep it gentle and soft. "Sssh, come here, Tony. Just let me kiss you."

Steve laughs softly when Tony grumbles against his mouth and shifts, pulling Tony with him, until he's resting against the armrest and Tony is partially sprawled over him. Steve his running his hands up Tony's back, feeling the tense and hard muscles under his fingers and digs in a few times massaging slightly, trying to get Tony to relax a bit more. 

Tony is finally beginning to unwind and Steve can feel then tension bleeding out of him, the muscles unknotting while he seems willing to indulge Steve's desire for slow and languid. 

"My eyes, my eyes. Bleach! Where's the bleach? Hell, next time warn a guy." Clint suddenly exclaims from the door to the living-room. "Oh and Stark, if you two are having sex on that couch, you buy a new one! I'm not having movie-night on a couch the two of you have fucked on." 

Steve curses himself silently for not paying more attention to their surroundings when Tony flinches at Clint's sudden comment and the muscles in his back tense up again, all of Steve's hard work undone in moments. 

"Fuck off, Barton!" Tony retorts without looking up, keeping most of his attention on Steve. 

"We're not having sex on the couch," Steve says at the same time, cupping Tony's neck and massaging lightly. 

"Whatever. I'll just let the others know to stay out of the room, so that they don't have to bleach their brains as well." Clint calls out and Steve can hear him walk away, muttering to himself. 

"We're not?" Tony asks, looking slightly perplexed, but he's beginning to relax again and Steven congratulates himself from distracting Tony from Clint's interruptions. 

Steve grins and kisses him again, just a peck, barely more than a brush of his lips against Tony's mouth. "No, we're not. Think of it as an experiment." 

"Experiment? You want to experiment? Oh okay, experiments I can do. What kind of experiment? What are the parameters? Do you have JARVIS recording? He can do the analysis. He's very good at doing analysis if he knows what to watch for." 

Steve smiled at Tony's enthusiasm and the running commentary although that wasn't quite what he'd had in mind. He kissed Tony again and hummed happily when Tony kissed back without hesitation. 

"No, we don't need JARVIS. Also no recordings. And no fixed parameters. I'm kind of winging it." 

"Winging it? Steve, you don't just wing an experiment! You at least need to define the parameters of the experiment and have a hypothesis. Or a theory you want to prove or disprove." Tony frowns when Steve chuckles and nuzzles into Tony's hair. "Just what are you trying to figure out exactly?"

Steve just shakes his head and pulls Tony into another kiss. "How about this: How often do I have to kiss Tony Stark until he decides that kissing and cuddling on the couch doesn't have to lead to sex? And the parameters would include one Steve Rogers, one Tony Stark, and kissing on a couch? Is that enough or should I add more?"

"Wait, I am your experiment?" Tony blinks at him with confused eyes and Steve just has to kiss him again. 

"I like experimenting with you." That answer earns Steve a wicked leer and a hard kiss. 

"I like experimenting with you as well. I'm not sure though if I like the goal of this experiment. No sex? Really?"

"No sex on the couch, Tony. Just kissing and cuddling." Steve demonstrate what he means by kissing Tony again, gently biting at his mouth and only deepening the kiss when Tony moans hungrily.

"No sex on the couch. That would mean we could have sex elsewhere, like for example on the floor?" Tony asks, when Steve breaks the kiss. Tony's lips are red and lightly swollen, his eyes intend on Steve.

"I'm not having sex on the floor," Steve laughs, shaking his head.

Tony isn't really deterred by Steve's comment and just continues talking. "Okay, if not the floor, then somewhere else though. The table? Against the wall? One of the chairs? Maybe the counter in the kitchen? I've always wanted to try out sex in the kitchen, you know, do the whole 9½ weeks thing." Tony is actually snuggling in while he talks so Steve just lets him ramble on while he pulls him closer and noses along his jaw-line to place gentle kisses to the soft behind Tony's ear. His beard-stubble is scratching slightly, s sure sign that he worked too long without a break. 

Steve isn't sure what sex has to do with 9½ weeks, especially as they've together for longer than that but decides not to interrupt Tony and ask for clarification. He's learned by now that sometimes it's better to not ask unless he wants Tony to go off on a completely unrelated tangent or two or three, while trying to explain what Steve had asked about. Last time he did that Tony somehow had managed to go from poppyseed ice-cream to the Victorian sewer system in London via Egyptian architecture and ended with a diatribe about some SF movie involving time-travelling dwarfs. 

"Hmm, we could always go somewhere else, maybe some place with a bed? Sex on a bed would be okay, wouldn’t it? That wouldn’t interfere with your experiment." The calculating glint in Tony's eyes is hard to miss. 

Steve laughs. "Yes, sex on a bed would be okay and I'll take you to bed later. I promise." Of course he hopes that by then Tony has relaxed enough that he'll just fall asleep or even already be asleep. Not that Steve has any problem when it comes to sex with Tony, he loves having sex with Tony, but he prefers to have sex with a well-rested Tony than one that's exhausted and at the same time too hyper from lack of sleep.

Steve feels a bit bad about manipulating Tony this way. On the other hand he has learn that some form of manipulation often works better with Tony than a more direct approach, especially when on some level Tony is aware that he's being manipulated. "But before we go to bed I want to cuddle a bit with you and make out for a while."

By now Tony has relaxed even more and is actively snuggling up against Steve, the edge of his arc reactor biting into Steve's side. Yet he's still grumbling. "Kissing and cuddling. Bah. What kind of experiment is that?" 

Steve buries his fingers in the hair at the nape of Tony's neck and gently strokes and massages the tense muscles, occasionally running his fingers up into Tony's hair. Tony's relaxing more and more against Steve and by now is humming with pleasure. He's almost pliantly resting against Steve, kissing back when Steve kisses him. It's warm and lazy and even better than Steve imagined. 

"Kama Sutra," Tony suddenly murmurs against Steve's mouth when Steve has leaned in to steal another kiss 

Steve's a bit thrown by the sudden non-sequitor. "Pardon?" 

"Gay Kama Sutra, since you like books so much. JARVIS, make a note: A physical, paper copy of the gay kama sutra for our resident fossil. Maybe one of these big heavy tomes with the historical drawings and photos and stuff." Tony sounds half-asleep and presses even deeper into Steve's arms, resting more heavily against him while he talks.

"Noted, sir." JARVIS announces and Steve just rolls his eyes, deciding to go with the flow. He'll look into this Kama Sutra-book later just to be prepared. 

"You'll like the drawings, I think. Ancient Indian art, though I think that's only the het version. If you don't die of mortification first." Tony adds and yawns. By now he has pressed his face into the curve where Steve's neck meets his shoulder. 

The leer's sleepy but still unmistakable and Steve has a better idea what Tony is talking about. He just snorts, as always amused that everyone thinks that he's some kind of untainted innocent. "You do remember that I studied art, don't you? I've also seen porn before. Surprisingly enough it even existed during my time. Bucky had a nice little collection that he shared with me." He pulls Tony a bit closer and chuckles softly. 

I also served in the army and the men under my commando passed around porn all the time. And then there was Howard. He always brought a stack of magazines and photographs with him. Made him very popular with the guys. We just had to make sure that Peggy or one of theother dames didn't see it. That one time Peggy found one of the magazines, she burned it." 

Tony makes a choked noise that sounds like a whimper. "Oh, no, no, no. You can't say things like that. My father wasn't interested in sex and most definitely didn't have sex. Never ever. He also didn't have a porn collection." 

Steve laughs. "Okay, your father didn't have sex. So I guess you were created in a laboratory then? Might explain a few things."

Tony pouts then the pout morphs into a rueful grin. "How about this? No mentions of my father when we are about to have sex." 

"Nice try, Tony, but I told you, no sex on the couch. Just this." Steve leans in and steals another kiss, smiling when Tony just kisses back, murmuring happily before snuggling down again. His breathing is evening out more and more and Steve has the feeling that he's on the way to falling asleep. The question now is if he should wait until Tony is sleeping and then carry him to bed or get him into bed now while Tony is still coherent. 

Reaching a decision Steve presses a kiss against Tony's hair. "How about moving to the bed? 

"Experiment over?" Tony mumbles, face still pressed into the curve of Steve's shoulder and making no move to untangle himself or get up. 

"Let's say the first test-run was a success."

"You really need to do more than one run to make sure that your collected data is correct."

"I guess a lot depends on my partner and his willingness to repeat the experiment," Steve says.

"It would be hypocritical of me to not support scientific endeavours,"Tony murmurs around a yawn.

"So, bed?" Steve asks. "You said something about wanting sex."

"Yeah," Tony hums and snuggles deeper into Steve's side, making some shuffling noises and rubbing his nose against Steve's shoulder, before falling still, his breaths deep and even. Maybe they should stay on the couch a bit longer and then later he can carry Tony to their bedroom. There are some advantages to being a super soldier.

And in the morning, once Tony has had some sleep they can have sex, since they'll be in bed and not on the couch.


End file.
